Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 283=363.= the Red Man's Heaven
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White man! I say not that they lie Who preach a faith so dark and drear, That wedded hearts in yon cold sky Meet not as they were mated here. But scorning not thy faith, thou must Stranger, in mine have equal trust,— The Red man's faith, by Him implanted, Who souls to both our bodies granted. Thou know'st in life we mingle not; Death cannot change our different lot! He who hath placed the White man's heaven Where hymns in vapory clouds are chanted, To harps by angel fingers play'd, Not less on his Red children smiles, To whom a land of souls is given, Where in the ruddy West array'd. Brighten our blessed hunting isles.
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Those blissful ISLANDS OF THE WEST! I've seen, myself, at sunset time, The golden lake in which they rest; Seen, too, the barks that bear The Blest, Floating toward that fadeless clime: First dark, just as they leave our shore, Their sides then brightening more and more, Till in a flood of crimson light They melted from my straining sight. And she who climb'd the storm-swept steep, She who the foaming wave would dare, So oft love's vigil here to keep,— Stranger, albeit thou think'st I dote, I know, I know she watches there! Watches upon that radiant strand, Watches to see her lover's boat Approach The Spirit-Land.
He ceased, and spoke no more that night, Though oft, when chillier blew the blast, I saw him moving in the light The fire, that he was feeding, cast; While I, still wakeful, ponder'd o'er His wondrous story more and more. I thought, not wholly waste the mind Where Faith so deep a root could find, Faith which both love and life could save, And keep the first, in age still fond. Thus blossoming this side the grave In steadfast trust of fruit beyond. And when in after years I stood By INCA-PAH-CHO'S haunted water, Where long ago that hunter woo'd In early youth its island daughter, And traced the voiceless solitude Once witness of his loved one's slaughter— At that same season of the leaf In which I heard him tell his grief,— I thought some day I'd weave in rhyme, That tale of mellow autumn time.
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=William Gilmore Simms, 1806-1870.= (Manual, pp. 523, 490, 510.)
From "The Cassique of Accabee."